3 FEINBERG AND SCRIABIN Humanity and Mysticism The Odessa-born Samuel Evgenyevich Feinberg (1890-1962) became, along with Alexander Goldenweiser and Heinrich Neuhaus, one of the founders of the modern Russian school at the Moscow Conservatory, where he enjoyed universal esteem. Feinberg is remembered with warmth and respect; a former student of his recalls, “Feinberg was an extremely cultured, educated, intellectual, honest, and decent per- son. His great knowledge and respect for people gave him an ability to win favor through his artistic and personal nature.”! Archives and personal memoirs of the period consistently reveal similar affection and acknowledgment of his stature. While aware of his importance, Feinberg remained modest. Quoting a Russian proverb, he used to say that everything he knew was just a drop in the ocean of all that exists in the world of culture. A bachelor all his life, Feinberg lived with his brother’s family in the House of Composers. His apartment became a lively artistic center: his brother was an artist with a cultured daughter and a son who wrote about the study of art and its criti- cism. Feinberg always fostered a strong creative climate among those around him and befriended a wide range of prominent artists. His awareness of the importance of leading-edge creativity led him to become an ardent advocate of contemporary music (he was among the first major pianists to include works by Medtner in his active repertoire). Feinberg’s energetic membership in the Association of Contem- porary Music in the 1920s resulted in material opportunities for a legion of young Russian composers. A quiet generosity reflected his oft-told concern for peer and student alike. Boris Lvov studied with Feinberg for nearly six years, as both an undergraduate and a postgraduate student at the Aspirantura (for advanced studies, in the hierarchy of the Russian educational system). Lvov was rather poor during the difficult post- World War II years and had to work many hours outside music to support himself. He graduated from the conservatory in 1947 after winning first prize in the Bee- thoven Competition. Three months before final examinations, Feinberg told Lvov to take time off to study full time for the diploma exam. He then produced a wad of 8586 CHAPTER 3 cash and on the spot gave Lvov five thousand rubles—a large sum in those days— remarking that it would last for two or three months. When handing him the money, Feinberg looked more bashful than Lvov did. Another, more humorous instance of Feinberg’s generosity took place ina classroom with many students. He entered with a large amount of ice cream, at the time a true luxury. He simply said that he wanted to treat them. The students, feeling that it was impolite to accept such a gift, refused, protesting, “No, Samuel Evgenyevich, we do not want it.” This went on until the ice cream started melting in Feinberg’s hands, whereupon he implored in mock despair, “Do you have no shame or good breeding? I want to treat you, and now I must run around the classroom with melting ice cream offer- ing it to each of you!” Everyone began to laugh and finally partook of the rare treat. Feinberg demonstrated directness and goodwill toward everyone with whom he came in contact, regardless of their position in life or what they could do for him. His humor stayed just below the surface—never loud nor flaunted. He spoke ina unique manner as well. Like the romance languages, Russian stresses certain sylla- bles to create an almost musical way of speaking. Feinberg often accented minor words to give a sentence unusual meaning and to cause his students to think in new ways about what he was saying. He came to be highly respected, even cherished, not only by those in his classes, but by other professors and their students as well. He displayed tact and sensitivity with other faculty members and would shake hands with all students while inquir- ing about their progress. Among his closest friends at the conservatory was Alexan- der Goedicke, the noted pianist, organist, and senior professor, who was close to both the Rachmaninov and the Medtner families. Feinberg found another confidant in his teacher, Goldenweiser, whose diaries—in a fascinating running commentary on the musical milieu of the period—describe his chess partner and fellow Mus- covite as an engaging and warmhearted person. Feinberg was an aristocrat in his outward appearance, although he did not like having his photograph taken and avoided all notions of self-publicity. An imposing, impressive man, he also believed in the importance of character, a personal moral center unshakable by external events or other people. His performances reflected this nature, along with an impeccable technique and fully developed emotional Projection. The Pianist Feinberg garnered the same widespread admiration on stage as in his personal life. His achievements cast him as a musical pioneer; he was the first Russian pianist to play and record Bach’s entire Well-Tempered Clavier, and he gave the Russian pre- miere of the complete Beethoven sonatas. There are well-known stories of Rosalyn Tureck and Feinberg’s classmate Tatyana Nikolayeva, who at competitions and88 CHAPTER 3 examinations asked the judges which of Bach’s forty-eight preludes and fugues they would like to hear, but Feinberg was first to do so. Very few musicians ever have dared such gambits. At his graduation examination, Feinberg exhibited his gifts through a dazzling interpretation of Rachmaninoy’s Third Concerto. His perform- ances of this masterpiece gave it widespread attention in his country, long before the composer's recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra appeared. A Feinberg stu- dent, Viktor Merzhanovy, has called him one of Rachmaninov’s few legitimate heirs: Feinberg completely understood the subtle laws of plasticity of rhythm and dynamics in that composer’s works, and developed them so that he was able to approach the furthest possible limits of the interpreter’s art, touching on aspects of the human soul and human feelings that are rarely studied. Improvisation, absolute mastery, and rare insight into the possibilities of the piano were elements of his style? Feinberg made another Third Concerto, the Prokofiev classic, one of his spe- cialties and became famous throughout Europe and Russia for his performances of that masterwork. A German review captures the public’s response: “Feinberg found particles of his own soul in this concerto. He is connected with this type of music by inner kinship and the most subtle understanding.” He tackled it with such preci- sion and abandon that the composer himself was astonished. Prokofiev's letters often refer to Feinberg in this way. Feinberg and Prokofiev also gave duo recitals in which they played Prokofiev's transcriptions of Schubert waltzes. Feinberg’s first acquaintance with the music of Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) came at the conservatory; he found it difficult, if highly attractive. In 1913, at age twenty-three, Feinberg finally met Scriabin, and he became one of the very few pian- ists whom the composer appreciated. Scriabin’s main complaint with most pianists was that their styles were too much like Prokofiev's: steely and hard, more con- cerned with realism than fantasy. Yet Feinberg was Prokofiev's most celebrated in- terpreter. He was the bridge—the most important link—between the two distinct factions of the celebrated Russian school of pianism, which pitted Scriabin’s mysti- cal, sexual, opiate music against Prokofiev’s dynamism and percussive approach to composition. Feinberg was the pianist both composers admired above all. This management of such diametrically opposed styles, reflecting his eager absorption of all manner of culture from painters and architects to writers and composers, made hima respected and enduring artist. Feinberg combined elements of extreme contrast, an extraordinary variety of touch and sound, a sharp rhythmic and agogic sense, and charisma—all consid- ered touchstones of the Russian school. In concert, he paid great attention to sound, derived from his twin passions for Prokofiev and Scriabin—one percussive and finite, the other liquid and evolving. Feinberg’s reputation for amazing stamina was enhanced by his recitals of the complete Scriabin sonatas, performed in one evening.FEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 89 He became associated with large segments of the repertoire of Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann, as well as much contemporary Russian music. Feinberg always took seriously his responsibilities toward the music of his time and did not limit himself to his own works, as Scriabin and Medtner largely did. Typical of his adventurous- ness with programs was an all-sonata recital in May 1924 in Leningrad; where he played Miaskovsky’s Second, Alexandrov’s Third, Prokofiev’s Fourth, Scriabin’s Fifth, and his own Sixth. Feinberg captivated his listeners. The writer and pianist Jan Holcman heard Fein- berg’s Russian recitals in 1941 and reported, “He was so emotionally involved with the music that listeners could hear him breathing heavily at every crescendo, mod- ulation, or climax.”* Pianist and audience became inseparable. Feinberg had definite views about the dynamic on both sides of the stage: A fatal mistake of the artist-interpreter is his underestimation of the listener’s personal participation in the process of musical perception. Not all of what the performer lives for and what stirs him on stage fully touches the audience. The concert artist may be content with silence and attention. However, that is not enough: accord and like-mindedness are also needed. His playing should carefully avoid that which is . .. excessively personal. A performance for an audience is, at the same time, an act of clearing oneself of everything reserved and subjective, an act of consolidating the individual features that possess universal meaning. The performer who deservedly demands listeners’ focused attention gives them not the transient achievements of taste, fashion, or artistic whim, but his special talent for revealing the depths and values inseparably connected with genuine creativity.° Only Feinberg could have written music so perfectly suited to his hands and tem- perament. Like the others of The Eight, he composed music without considering whether it was playable by anyone but himself. As Feinberg said, “Great composers such as Rachmaninov, Medtner, and Scriabin were wonderful pianists who came to their pianism through their own compositions.”’ In these cases, musical content and its subsequent execution became inviolable partners, a subject persuasively treated in Feinberg’s article “Artistry and Mastery Are Inseparable.”* Above all else, a composer-pianist’s creativity perfectly mirrors both soul and psyche. The Rus- sian writer Victor Belaiev observed: Feinberg’s piano technique is not that of splendor nor of the grandiose; it is rather that of the intimate expression of both composer and executant— nervous, capricious, vehement, an expression sounding the whole diapason of feelings of the contemporary man and artist, from the extreme limits of horror, despair, and pain to those of joy, triumph, and victory.”90 CHAPTER 3 The Teacher In the classroom, Feinberg always stressed the pure qualities of sound as part of a global approach to teaching, never discussing details about phrasing or fingering without first placing the conception and meaning of a piece in his students’ thoughts. Put another way, the concrete could not be poured until the plans were firmly drawn up. Feinberg then carefully spoke of phrases and their character, and how to make sure that the “little bricks” (as he called separate phrases) could be put together smoothly when the musical text is securely in head and hands. He dem- onstrated how a phrase could be joined, disjoined, and finally combined into the whole, and he delved passionately into all aspects of a composition’s character. The atmosphere in his classroom was conducive to the search for creative truth. When his students initially came to Feinberg, they invariably betrayed nervousness and occasional strain, but they soon relaxed under the spell of Feinberg’s gentle personality. He always sought the most important things to say without speaking very much, wasting few words painting pictures of images or paintings, nor talking about the endless complicated ideas that can be found in the best compositions. If he needed a specific image, he could at any given moment quote a line or two of poetry, of which he had an encyclopedic knowledge. He did not use this gift exces- sively, however, believing it useless to describe music in words—the sounds them- selves were so essential and inspiring, He and the rest of The Eight were the piano’s aural sensualists. Feinberg took the connection between poetry and music seriously, a distinctly Russian conviction supported by a rich literary legacy. Setting Russian poetry to music in song occupied many composers. Feinberg’s works for voice and piano— like those of his predecessors Rachmaninov and Medtner—were brilliant settings of words by their poetic idols, especially Lermontov and, above all, Pushkin. Russians regularly speak of Pushkin’s poems as being like music. The pianist Lazar Berman explains: Each word by Pushkin is a word of gold and every sound should be golden to true musicians, both in its quality and as it relates to the composition as. a whole. Everything must be completely clear and listened to with ease—the way we easily read Pushkin, knowing of course that these elements cannot be called “easy.” Further, Pushkin was extremely theatrical and music based on his words often shares this quality. When we read his Boris Godunov and other works for the stage, we are inspired to visualize entire productions.” “A poem,” Feinberg wrote, also implies performance. Recitation depends on individual interpretation to an even larger extent than music, The reader of a poetic composition with his eyes is, at the same time, its performer. If he does not recite the poem aloud,FEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 91 then his imagination still beholds the rhythm, euphony, and all the sonic elements of the verse.'! Feinberg’s legendary memory permitted him at any time not only to recite a vast array of poetry, but also to have much of the piano’s repertoire at his fingertips. He bore his intellect lightly and without vanity, inspiring in his students not only great respect, but also the ambition to learn as much as they could themselves—the mark of true greatness in a teacher. In addition, Feinberg’s human qualities shone through to his students, who were all known for their receptivity to the highest forms of cul- ture. Feinberg was also gifted with a sense of irony and humor, similar to that of Godowsky or Sorabji, though his remarks were always tempered by compassion. Among friends, he could be riotously funny. Goldenweiser’s diaries describe Feinberg’s parodies, such as his variations on “Why Are You Madly in Love?” (a popular Russian love song) played in the style of different composers, or his bur- lesque of the overture to Wagner’s Tannhduser. “We laughed ourselves into fits,” wrote Goldenweiser. On the concert stage, Feinberg displayed inexhaustible technical and musical resources. Backing up his intellect and imagination were clarity, refinement, and perfection, qualities that, combined with his natural self-effacement, made Fein- berg a refreshing figure. As for competitions, Feinberg was never caught up in the mania they can produce among teachers and students alike. He witnessed the severe effects of such events upon those who tied their lives and careers to them. Just before the Second World War, however, Feinberg did serve on the jury of the prestigious Ysaye Competition in Brussels—along with Arthur Rubinstein and Walter Giese- king, among others—balancing an active European career with duties at home. Feinberg produced no world-famous names from his student list. This was due in part to his extensive concert activity, which permitted somewhat limited class- room time. Were history to have given him three students who would become among the greatest pianists of the twentieth century—as Heinrich Neuhaus had in Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, and Radu Lupu—Feinberg’s name would be pro- jected far wider today through program notes and reference books. Neuhaus well knew and in fact chose the trade-offs, for he himself never became a top-tier pian- ist. Lupu recalls his teacher and the milieu in which he studied: ‘The Moscow Conservatory was an incredible place to be while I was there. The Russian School is a kind of half-political, half-musical situation. The system was and still is extraordinary in taking young, talented pianists and building them up. Feinberg contributed greatly to this philosophy and on a human and musical level he was every bit as influential as Neuhaus.'? Feinberg left his mark on scores of young pianists. He was an unusually gifted and beloved educator, with a deep sense of humanity and humility. His classes came92 CHAPTER 3 to be seen asa sanctuary for his students, less glamorous perhaps than Neuhaus’s, but the more serene. Among the conservatory’s pedagogues and professors, there were many rather strict critics; Feinberg alone was noted for his special kindness. He was not a well-wisher who would say that a performance was good if he did not believe it. Rather, during an examination, he always sought out the best in a stu- dent’s playing, attempting to find the exceptional qualities that did come across (another hallmark of a great teacher). But Feinberg could use guile when appropri- ate. For example, Lvov could not play a passage anywhere near as well as required in a Beethoven sonata. Feinberg simply said in the kindest way, after they had tried many different ways to find a solution, that it was a matter of talent. If Lvov had it, he could do it. This mild teasing—and the lack of a precise explanation—forced Lvov to worry about the difficulty, provoking him to deep thought and a firm deter- mination, ultimately successful, to do something about it. At the end of the twentieth century, a number of Feinberg’s former students were important figures at the conservatory, and their grandchildren have become teachers there, continuing Feinberg’s lasting impact upon the musical history of Russia and the Moscow Conservatory. His legend continues in concrete form through a remarkably insightful and comprehensive book, Pianism as Art, which examines the highest ideals—both practical and intangible—of the pianist’s art. Pianism as Art The language of Feinberg’s book is exquisite, its ideas invaluable, its conclusions original. Once again, he demonstrates his concern for both external and internal forms, analogous to a fine meal that not only looks beautiful, but is incredibly sat- isfying, Berman believes that Pianism as Artdeserves a much wider airing and advo- cates publicizing this work, as Feinberg’s name is well known not to a wide circle of listeners, but only to an elite group of musicians. He also understands that the point of view from which Feinberg’s book is read also plays a crucial part. Knowing firsthand what a significant phenomenon its author was, I would read Pianism as Art differently than if I did not know what kind of person he was,!3 Pianism as Art assays the piano’s complexities more completely than has ever been attempted in a single volume, perceptively analyzing style, sound, technique, and rhythm. Its detailed section on the pedals should be required reading for pian- ists unaware of the infinitely varied possibilities of pedal usage. In-depth segments on Beethoven, Chopin, Scriabin, Schumann, and Prokofiev feature their music and development to highlight larger points of interpretation and technique. Pianism as Art contains chapters titled “The Composer and Performer,” with a section on tran- scriptions; “Style,” including an examination of virtuosity; “Sound,” which explainsFEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 93 the types of possible sounds and how to achieve them; “Technique” and the proper way to accomplish specific goals and avoid problems; “Pedals,” which has a section called “Vocal Pedal” describing how to sing on the piano; “Rhythm and Meter,” including an essay on the étude as a musical form—from Bach to Liszt, Rachmani- nov, and Scriabin; and other chapters dealing with time, meter, and the strong con- nection between poetry and music. One reads within its pages a lifetime of wisdom and humanity experienced through the piano’s unique voice. Recordings Through no less tangible means than his written words, Feinberg’s recordings reveal a similar force of spirit, beautifully on display in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. A contemporary review called Feinberg “an intelligent, impulsive, and independent artist, whose long experience with polyphony is particularly well reflected in his performances of Bach.”"4 Although health problems forced him to retire from the concert stage in the mid- 1950s, Feinberg continued to record until the week of his death in 1962. His discs of the Well-Tempered Clavier were completed when he was over seventy, but they show an assurance and intuition outside the grasp of many pianists of any age. His complete identification with Bach’s idiom is rare in an artist celebrated for his Bee- thoven, Prokofiev, and Scriabin. Feinberg recorded as very few musicians do: he set down his interpretations from the first attempt, with no retakes. Feinberg’s profes- sionalism was widely admired throughout his career. The accuracy of his tech- nique—the product ofa perfectionism that only increased with age—was always up to the mark and surprised even those closest to him. Feinberg’s recordings of late Beethoven recall live performances by Rudolf Serkin every phrase is invested with an unusual combination of humility, power, and conviction. Beethoven was always central to Feinberg’s repertoire. He used to repeat the quip that young pianists sat on volume two of the Beethoven sonatas while playing from volume one; the second was simply too difficult for budding musicians. As for Feinberg’s Scriabin discs, they fully justify the composer’s admiration; the Fourth Sonata and Piano Concerto are played with unmatched authority. Through their power and poignancy, these recordings suggest the darker sides of life experi- enced at first hand. Politics and War Feinberg, unlike Scriabin, was not spared the horrors of war. After the Second World War, he was denounced and disgraced as a result of the ill-fated decree of 1948, whereby the Communist Party’s Central Committee censured Prokofiev,94 CHAPTER 3 Dmitri Shostakovich, and so many other Soviet composers. Feinberg’s Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Sonatas were singled out for their “extreme subjectivism,” and he was deprived of concert and recording opportunities. The era saw a frightening conflu- ence of atrocity and repression, and afterward many artists were hospitalized with heart attacks and other stress-related ailments. Feinberg suffered greatly. His com- plicated music, increasingly remote and austere, obviously did not endear him to the authorities. Similar decrees were enacted in other fields; all technical, scientific, and artistic issues were controlled. Vissarion Shebalin, director of the Moscow Conservatory anda prominent composer, was removed and persecuted for no reason. Perhaps he could not confess as well as others did. There were many such meetings, during which professors alternately confessed and then—kneeling and begging—refused to have anything to do with the charges. Such cruel scenes occurred daily at the con- servatory. Lvov likened the situation to the Inquisition, when people, books, and scientific inventions were burned out of hatred and ignorance. Professors and students were starving; everything was distributed through the card system. They would go to the store, begging from salesgirls: “Tonechka, sweetheart, please, give me some butter,” and Tonechka would say, “But there is no butter today.” More often than not, they went home with nothing. “It was very difficult for us to survive in those years,” wrote Feinberg’s younger brother Leonid, “but we looked beyond the material hardships.” He related the following charming story: Once, we managed to exchange one of Samuel Evgenyevich’s tailcoats for some potatoes. Not long afterward, the peasant who had brought the potatoes came to us with a new offer. “Do you have any more of such clothes? It is so comfortable to walk behind the plough in such a thing.”!* ‘Through it all, Feinberg managed to maintain his dignity and nobility of purpose, and somehow the family lived a joyful life with what they had. The Composer ‘Well before this repressed, chaotic period, Feinberg absorbed life’s bleaker offerings with unusual awareness and perception. Personally, he was sensitive and highly refined in the manner of Scriabin, but without the latter’s tendency to consider himself the center of the world. Feinberg’s brand of musical poetry does not explore the rarefied, ephemeral, or sensuous, but rather focuses on the deeper psyche and problems of man. As Belaiev observed, Feinberg’s art is “founded upon the purely philosophical understanding of the contradiction between humanity and nature, both intellectually and brutally.” '° His refined sense of touch and style allowed him to coax the most ephemeral overtones from the piano and prevented any hint of bombast from entering his compositions.96 CHAPTER 3 A complicated man, Feinberg generally kept his anxieties and inner demons to himself, However, in a remarkable admission for a twenty-two-year-old of such innate gifts and outward charm, Feinberg wrote to his friend Vera Efron: You cannot imagine how terrible it can be to stay lonely. I feel sure that I am often drawn to people only by my desire to seek oblivion and to stop hating myself for at least some time. .. . You are probably surprised by the contrasts between what I have written, and my usual garrulousness and inclination to talk about myself. ... When I am alone, it seems to me that many thoughts which cross my mind regarding myself could scare you.’” Feinberg’s mother, Anna, recognized these conflicts in her son, imploring him to “struggle with all your might to find your own way, you owe that to yourself and your talent . . . the whole secret lies in your nervousness that made you a musician but which is killing him in you now.”!® Deep emotional states—both positive and negative—can elicit musical ideas or recollections, especially in musicians. “Regarding my own creativity,” Feinberg explained, “always feel while composing that a large part of my real emotions and life are involved, and that my creative process is not remote. There can be such vivid artistic impressions reflecting what happens in life.”"” Feinberg did not formally study composition for very long, relying instead on improvisation and then independent experimentation away from the piano. The composer Anatoly Alexandrov recognized that for Feinberg, “what is inexpressible is most important. His palette includes an aesthetic theory of so-called ‘non-exis- tent’ shades, the elements of musical realization which can be sensed only by the pianist, not the listener.”®° Feinberg came to these concepts well into his develop- ment, although composition became part of his creative life starting with the early teen years, His intensive study of works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Prokofiev, Medtner, Rachmaninoy, and Scriabin undoubtedly influenced his style, as did other avenues of his life, including performing and teaching. Feinberg took note of the beneficial interrelationship of his activities, though he also spoke of the conflict they engendered: I have moments when I regret that I gave too much to performing. Unfortunately my creative work was very often interrupted by difficult responsibilities such as performance goals and teaching —that I was absolutely knocked out from the compositional world. Creative work needs the same cultivation, even more than performing work. I can tell you the terrible feelings I experienced. When you have a musical thought but it is not fully formed for a final draft, you doubt that you are at a certain edge and are afraid to forget something very important or notate it incorrectly, but at the same time you need to leave this work for other commitments. . . . Yet,FEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 97 Inoticed that along with the appearance of my compositions, my abilities as a pianist were improving. For me it was absolutely clear that my pianism and technical mastery of the instrument owe a lot to my composing... . You are writing, seated at the table, and when you get to the piano after, you realize you are playing better. Somehow this moment of activating the sound image influences the kinetic process.” Of course, the technical and theoretical foundation must be present, which it was abundantly in Feinberg’s case. As with many of his peers and predecessors, an early fascination with Bach informed his awareness of counterpoint and independ- ence of the fingers. And although his achievements as a composer are underesti- mated, all of his celebrated contemporaries—including Prokofiev and Shostako- vich—noted the great philosophical richness of his compositions as well as a piano technique entirely in service of his ideas. Feinberg’s work is distinguished by an originality combining the attributes of his Russian training with modern pianism. His experimentation was never driven by the need to be different; true emotion became an end in itself as opposed to the means required to obtain it. His melodies are too expressive to be merely attractive; they strive for something weightier. ‘The difficulty of Feinberg’s compositions is always an issue. They are heavily contrapuntal, and the entire keyboard takes part in musical dialogues between the hands. Few pianists choose to handle such complicated works; on the concert stage their greatest successes usually emanate from the compositions of the better-known composers, But as difficult as they are, Feinberg’s piano works remain no less apptoachable than music by Gyorgy Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, or others who write in their own resonant musical languages. Feinberg’s tonally experimental music is closer in style to that of Nikolai Ros- lavets and late Scriabin. As in the music of the others of The Eight, technical diffi- culties must be rendered invisible in order for a given work to succeed. This all but guarantees that some of the labor required of the performer will go unnoticed by audiences. For the selfless pianist, though, tangible rewards await in this expressive, undiscovered repertoire. Most musicians, however, must cultivate material success simply to continue their careers. If they consistently play compositions like Feinberg’s, they will gener- ally not experience the level of acclaim necessary to remain on the concert stage. This reality creates a troubling disproportion. Such magnificent works deserve the best possible airing; on the other hand, their textures and musical impulses can be so subtle that audiences may not appreciate them immediately. Listeners would ultimately benefit if they would give such music a second or third chance—but the demands this kind of programming makes on both audience and performer make the re-presentation of such works unlikely, Furthermore, the opportunity for finan- cial returns through playing Feinberg’s music is still limited. Pianists appear eachFEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 99 season at all the major musical centers performing all-Chopin concerts, yet few have the drawing power to give Feinberg equal due, much less play his major pieces individually. Feinberg’s direction as a composer became clear after the pivotal first perform- ances in Moscow of Scriabin’s Fifth Sonata and The Poem of Ecstasy in 1909. Fein- berg was deeply moved by this music. His ideas were precisely formed in his mind, but he experienced difficulty putting those thoughts down on paper. Curiously, his first attempts at real composition excluded the piano, despite his complete mastery of the instrument. Continuing on his own and initially unable to find the right expression, Feinberg turned to the violin, voice, string quartet, and orchestra. After much soul searching, he finally chose the piano as his preferred compositional medium. He began composing in earnest in 1915, the year of Scriabin’s death—an event that sharpened Feinberg’s focus. Scriabin was the greatest influence in Feinberg’s earlier creative experiments. Both composers were musical poets, although their works explored vastly different terrain. Scriabin derived much from Chopin in his early works; in Feinberg’s early compositions, however, his unique voice, beholden neither to Scriabin nor to any- one else, was already developed. Musically original from the beginning, Feinberg quickly found his own mature style. As Scriabin grew older, his world turned egocentric and ecstatic. By contrast, Feinberg became, in Victor Belaiev’s words, more concerned with “the subordina- tion of chaos to the power of the will”? In addition, Feinberg possessed neither the temperament nor the inclination to push his music on others; rather, Russia’s embracing musical atmosphere allowed him to quietly become known and per- formed. Which internationally renowned pianist will champion Feinberg’s music persuasively in the twenty-first century, as Vladimir Horowitz did with his Scriabin revival in the 1950s and 1960s? In an age when people exceed ever-higher goals in Olympic records, huge technological advances, and worldwide competition, in- creasing numbers of enterprising pianists will likely continue to resurrect Feinberg’s and other previously overlooked music. In 1925 Belaiev, who had his hand on the pulse of musical life in Moscow, called Feinberg Russia’s most outstanding modern composer. The legendary pianist Tat- yana Nikolayeva called cach one of his sonatas a “poem of life.””* As a Russian con- tributor to sonata form, Feinberg ranks with Medtner, Scriabin, and Prokofiev in the substance and body of his work. In common with Scriabin’s, Feinberg’s sonatas are usually monothematic and comprise tightly organized structures. In seeking to distill their ideas even further, both composers came to prefer one-movement forms, to which Scriabin turned in his Fifth Sonata. Feinberg’s works are models of the age’s spirit, combining Scriabin’s highly developed chromaticism with new directions of atonality that follow the experiments of Roslavets. Polyphony (in the principles laid out by Bach) and polyrhythm became Feinberg’s watchwords.100) CHAPTER 3 The preludes, Humoresque, and Berceuse (Opp. 15, 19, and 19a) may be viewed as fine starting points for Feinberg the miniaturist. His first two piano sonatas, sug- gesting the differing textures of Bach and Schumann, appeared the year Scriabin died. They speak of a youthful, pastoral lyricism. The lengthy, three-movement Third Sonata displays a completely different tone of tragedy and substance, (Scria- bin’s First Sonata, with its pessimism and concluding funeral march, explores sim- ilar terrain.) Feinberg’s Fourth Sonata, written in 1918 during the culmination of World War I, plumbs significant depths of experience, sharing spiritual kinship with Chopin’s “Winter Wind” Etude and Medtner’s “Night Wind” Sonata. Fein- berg’s work explores the nightmarish, chaotic mood of its time, with the finest craftsmanship. His Sixth Sonata, which he premiered to great acclaim at the Vienna Festival of Contemporary Music in 1925, comes close to the later works of Scriabin in expressions of the otherworldly or supernatural, although comprising textures more aligned with Rachmaninov. The Sixth is the only sonata for which Feinberg provided an epigraph, an excerpt from The Dawn of Europe by the German philos- opher Oswald Spengler. In the 1930s, however, Russia’s political climate led to Spengler’s being branded a fascist. The epigraph could have caused Feinberg serious problems, but he bought the remaining copies in circulation and had the sonata re- issued, substituting the offending passage with a quote from Fyodor Tyutchev’s poem “Sleeplessness.” Feinberg’s Seventh Sonata may be held as a mirror to Scriabin’s own Seventh, both playing upon the conflict of spirit and body. Feinberg’s work asserts self-con- trol, as if he has willed himself to contain the sensual; Scriabin simply revels in it. The Russian writer Victor Bunin suggested that the rhythmic and melodic fluctuations of Feinberg’s sonata “create a mood of anxious indefiniteness resembling a wary wandering in the dark.”*4 Feinberg’s remaining five sonatas, written from 1933 to 1960 and uninterrupted by the composition of smaller works, continued his exploration of the human expe- rience through substantial, innovative keyboard writing. With chiseled strokes, both Feinberg and Scriabin forged works undaunted by traditional limitations. Belaiev offered a statement as relevant for the future as it was in 1925: The artist must not fear to reach out to the uttermost limits of human emotions, though it is only by desperate experience and full knowledge of all phases of human life and feeling that the artist can give complete play to his intellectual powers and exercise them at the highest tension.?> Scriabin: Personality, Character, and Influences Scriabin surely flexed his own powers. His vanity and ego, coupled with an intense sexual drive, led him decisively past the early Chopin influence; he became known throughout Europe asa leader of the avant-garde and modernist movements. LaterFEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 101 in life his outlook narrowed to the point that he lacked any interest in other com- posers’ music. In another reflection of his self-absorption, none of Scriabin’s works bears a dedication—a curiosity almost unique among composers. He fully relin- quished himself to his muse. Maurice Aronson’s unpublished manuscript on Godowsky contains a revealing passage about Scriabin: He was a man of modest, retiring disposition, who shunned glaring lights and brilliancy. One evening he disappeared from a dinner party and could not be found anywhere about the house. Godowsky led the search for his colleague from cellar to garret. Suddenly he heard a funny tinkling sound emanate from an attic room that had been discarded from use long ago. Into this little room, in which an old upright piano had been stored, Scriabin had taken flight, overcome by the desire to give immediate expression to what he had conceived.”® Another memorable snapshot of Scriabin’s personality came from Arthur Ru- binstein, who recalled their introduction: “Come and have a cup of tea with me,” [Scriabin] said amiably, and we went to the nearby Café de la Paix and ordered some tea and cakes. [He] was short and slender, with wavy dark blond hair, a carefully trimmed pointed beard . .. and cold brown eyes which seemed to ignore everything around him, “Who is your favorite composer?” he asked with the condescending smile of the great master who knows the answer. When I answered without hesitation, “Brahms,” he banged his fist on the table. “What, what?” he screamed. “How can you like this terrible composer and me at the same time? When I was your age I was a Chopinist, later I became a Wagnerite, but now I can only bea Scriabinist!” And, quite enraged, he took his hat and ran out of the café, leaving me stunned by this scene and with the bill to pay” Boris de Schloezer, one of the composer’s intimate friends, perceptively observed that Scriabin was overjoyed when he glimpsed a spark of sympathy in others. But he was bitterly disillusioned when his friendship was not fully reciprocated. He was oversensitive; he was easily disheartened by a lack of understanding. He was not intolerant and was quite willing to engage in discussion with his most determined critics, but the moment he encountered a callous indifference, he would retreat into himself for a very long time.”* Scriabin took an active interest in architecture, painting, literature, and other artistic forms only to the extent to which they coincided with his own vision of the world and could help his work. Viewing people in this way as well, he could be wel- coming and receptive, but only as far as people either agreed with his concepts or could help to further his aims. If not, his impatience and vanity closed ranks around him. His personal culture stood a world away from Feinberg’s.Aland Serb upon piston am he Mote Consenary, 1852FENGEAG AND SCRAMIN 103 Sccabin saw his birth on Christmas Dy sigan and chosen is mother ‘brey ater is istbizhdsy, and he deel tere yan sna gest aunt, and a grandmother They spied hit ily prebly om tebaingt ise, incipaly men to Neosehe,Scrgbin in iste eas ao encountered the theosophiss Helene Batty and Ane Besant an his works begat ake ons ‘tcl cat satu of theosoty ed him nthe msi psopes nlding ‘mt erezhosy those teaching eed thecal sanctity offs en ape For Scrin, arythng les than Fasticiouscntol oer hie in mind eedFEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 105 was intolerable. In matters such as his prophecies and mystical aspirations, he lent more credence to psychology than to logic. “Logically, it may be an impossibility,” Scriabin would say, “but. .. one must take a psychological views logical contradic- tions abound in spiritual life, and I have more confidence in what I feel intuitively than in any ratiocination.””” Scriabin became fanatical about his personal and artistic freedom, relentlessly pursuing narcissistic feelings of ecstasy and mystical love. He separated from his first wife because of her inability to share his philosophical ambitions or his dreams of changing the world through his music. His second wife, Tatyana Schloezer, was much more in sympathy with her husband’s vision and had a profound influence upon him. Scriabin always had his supporters. Among the most important was the wealthy and influential publisher and patron of composers Mitrofan Belaiev, who had met Scriabin at a St. Petersburg recital in 1894. Belaiev was captivated by Scriabin and disagreed with his own chief artistic adviser, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who dis- liked Scriabin both personally and musically. After Belaiev’s death, Sergei Kousse- vitzky’s publishing firm, Edition Russe de Musique (later nationalized by the Bolshevik government in 1918), gave Scriabin its first contract and agreed to pay the composer a fixed sum of five thousand rubles a year to alleviate his financial stress. (Koussevitzky never missed a chance to promote worthwhile young Russian com- posers; Rachmaninov and Medtner, among others, were later supported as well.) Scriabin’s was a life of joy, undimmed by the obstacles he encountered. De Schloezer wrote, “He did not know the tranquil repose ofa man of wisdom who by an effort of his will places himself above life’s turmoil; nor the beatific quietude of a mystic absorbed in contemplation of his object of worship.”*° Scriabin’s note- books are filled with references to God, the universe, consciousness and subcon- ciousness, truth, and his own uniqueness in the world. “T am nothing,” the com- poser insisted. “I am only what I create. The destiny of the universe is clear. I have a will to live, I love life. 1 am God, I am nothing. I want to be all.” If these words. appear convoluted and melodramatic, their conviction and sincerity are nonethe- less undeniable. Critical Opinion Scriabin’s strong biases have always polarized listeners. But he simply kept true to his hyper-romantic nature. The erotic and subjective nature of some of Scriabin’s music found resistance after his death, as the tides of musical fashion shifted into modernism, atonality, neoclassicism, and, in the mid-twentieth century, a stultify- ing academicism with largely intellectual appeal. With the return of freedom and romanticism toward the end of the century came a concurrent resurgence in Scria- bin’s popularity.106 CHAPTER 3 As early as 1923, opinion in the Russian musical press started to shift away from Scriabin and toward Prokofiev. Scriabin’s self-obsessed music dealt with the intan- gibles of inwardness, whereas Prokofiev's immediately accessible works reflected the mood of the times. These were the qualities young Russians needed and responded to. Prokofiev was one of them, a young man out to capture the public’s attention with his own revolution. Feinberg eloquently summed up the transition: At the beginning of this century, near 1911 or 1912, when piano style achieved supreme elegance in Scriabin’s late works, when the picturesque and fluid trend called musical impressionism arrived from the West, when Rachmaninov’s open and diverse temperament became too direct and emotive against this background, there appeared the figure of a youthful composer who presented his First Piano Concerto. His name was Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev, and he totally revolutionized piano style.” Prokofiev's was not the only competitive voice hindering the acceptance of Scri- abin’s music. Shostakovich, early in his career during Stalin’s rule, was decidedly harsh toward Scriabin, calling him a bitter musical enemy in light of his music’s unhealthy eroticism, mysticism, passivity, and general flight from the reality of life—all characteristics absent from Shostakovich’s own music. Many composers changed their initially negative impressions of Scriabin. Recall- ing when he first heard his compatriot’s music, Rachmaninov admitted, “I thought Scriabin was simply a swine, but it seems he is a composer after all.” Busoni offered acandid response after reading through much of Scriabin’s early output: “Une indi- gestion de Chopin.” Itwas not until the later works that Busoni came to recognize Scriabin’s shimmering genius. His reaction was somewhat muted by the Russian’s narrow focus: Chopin had heroic aspirations too, but on the whole he remained in his own more limited waters. It is not in Scriabin’s nature, either, to compose big scores, but he tries to do it. I don’t consider that they will live, but I respect Scriabin for striving for such a high ideal.** Scriabin has always attracted fervent acolytes as well as severe critics. Even his first wife, Vera, continued to idolize him; she became the first pianist to perform all- Scriabin recitals. The pianist Hilde Somer authored a curious article in which she apparently saw herself at the center of the Scriabin revival, to which she appended her poem “Ecstasy.” Never mind that years earlier Horowitz in the United States, Richter elsewhere, and Feinberg before either of them, were at the forefront of Scri- abin performances; many pianists became part of the Scriabin cult and saw them- selves as chosen to deliver his message. “Scriabin,” wrote Somer, “is like an infusion penetrating one’s innermost core: mind—emotion and sexuality expanding.” She concluded her article, after two pages of fatally over-the-top prose about Scriabin’s greatness, by discussing the Ninth Sonata,FEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 107 which emerges from sulphurous fumes, invoking diabolic incantations. .. . One senses the mysterious tracing of occult symbols in the sand, summoning the spirits of the underworld with snake-like writhing and curling figurations, spiked by trills quivering with venom. More down-to-earth is her perceptiveness in pointing out the following parallel: “D. H. Lawrence said, ‘a whole man isa first-rate thinker and a first-rate animal, for one without the other is nothing.’ Such a man is Scriabin.”>* This profound obser- vation perfectly sums up Scriabin’s being, Exploratory and highly sexual, he con- stantly sought bridges from the ethereal to the earthly. Critics often saw Scriabin as a crazy eccentric, as far removed from the realities of life as a vaporous hallucination. In 1957 Rollo Myers articulated the prevailing opinion of Scriabin’s music: “On purely aesthetic grounds Scriabin’s hysterical, almost maniacal outpourings offend our twentieth-century canons of taste, and we are right to question the propriety of trying, as he did, to mix music and meta- physics.”*” Offended critics similarly abused Scriabin in his own time. In 1915, just before the composer’s death, John Runciman wrote in the fledgling Musical Quar- terly: “Scriabin puts himself in line with the futurists by giving usa lot of pretentious comment on his work—stuff which, without malice or any wish to pre-judge him, Ican only call pompous rubbish.” These words appeared after Scriabin’s magnifi- cent, explosive later works came to light. The critic, in his ignorance, reduced Scri- abin’s music to Chopin diluted with Henselt and water, and slightly flavored at times with Russian folk tune. . . . It is neat, slight music, totally uninspired, but graceful. By the application of a novel harmonic system, [his themes] are somewhat disguised, and incidentally most of the color and all of the expressiveness are bleached out of them. Runciman called the case of Scriabin, along with those of Stravinsky and Schoen- berg, “almost tragic. To have at their command the means of saying a new thing and to have the desire to say it, and yet have nothing new to say—how could any mortal be more unhappily endowed or have a sadder burden of fate laid upon him!” Unfortunately, such a judgment misses the highly disciplined, rigorous, and methodical nature of their compositional habits, developed from the best musical education and pedigree. Such teeming genius always looks for ways to expand the boundaries; this is the essence of creativity. One need not be steeped in extravagant philosophical writings to love and respond to Scriabin’s music. He was always true to his heritage and education, while employing a harmonic structure that gave valid- ity and meaning to his racing thoughts. Runciman wrote of Scriabin, “The desire to be original, startling, and astonish- ing at all costs is a symptom common to all the arts at the present day.”* To be sure, he sought fame and glory, but with a firmly grounded craft and true inspiration.FEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 109 Composer and Pianist Scriabin was not above self-posturing, but even his earlier, Chopin-tinted (some would say Chopin-tainted) music could never be called insincere. It was conceived according to ideals of clarity, logic, and intellect, filtered through increasingly relent- less questioning and self-criticism. Scriabin initially wrote only for the piano and had to pay the influential publisher Jurgenson to have his first pieces published. They were given scant attention. Scriabin’s teacher at the Moscow Conservatory, Vasily Safonov, became a devoted supporter and saw to it that Scriabin’s Piano Concerto of 1897 was per- formed often. Safonov gave him a professorship at the conservatory, but the young composer—who perpetually struggled to find periods of isolation in which to com- pose, and for whom money was alwaysa restraining issue—increasingly viewed this responsibility as hindering his creative life. From 1902 to 1903, after completing his Second Symphony, Scriabin worked diligently at composition to earn enough money to leave Russia. The artistic results were astonishing. As Alfred Swan ob- served: “At this ‘mercenary’ objective one can only smile, since that mass of piano music included such utterly unheard-of and perfect inspirations as the fourth sonata, the poems, Op. 32, and the “ragic’ and ‘Satanic’ Poems.” In the early 1900s, Scriabin was little noticed in Moscow or by the larger musical public, although his earlier works would later find considerable popularity. Despite his repeatedly falling in and out of favor, Scriabin’s influence has proven to be lasting and meaningful. ‘The Russian pioneers of nontonal music developed their own methods of work- ing with the scale independently of Schoenberg’s theories. Scriabin first used what he called the “mystic” chord, based upon the interval of a fourth, rather than the traditional triadic harmony of the third and fifth. Scriabin abandoned conventional harmonic thinking in his later works and developed his own unique chordal con- struction. Had he not died so young, Moscow might very well have become com- petitive with Vienna as the home of atonality. The triumvirate of Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern could have been supplanted by Scriabin, Roslavets, and Arthur Lourié, likely giving atonalism a more emotional aesthetic. ‘The essential Scriabin may also be discovered in large measure through use of the pedals. Feinberg put the pedals in a larger context relating to Scriabin’s enigmatic art: He refined methods of composition to such a degree of perfection and exquisiteness that his creative work touches extreme boundaries, beyond which there is a mystery of sound that has not yet been discovered ... a creative non-existence. Scriabin approached this border by such devices as complicated polyrhythm, hidden thematicism, and an exquisite use of the pedal—so delicate and subtle that a simple pedal change may appear primitive or even rough. Accuracy in notating pedal marks—already difficultT1009 CHAPTER 3 with Chopin’s style—is thus almost inconceivable to achieve Scriabin’s sound properly. Asa result, he largely refused to enter pedal markings in his manuscripts.” ‘The pedals must be manipulated in the most refined way in order to properly project many simultaneous strands of music. No amount of finger control by itself will compensate for the pedals’ finishing sheen. Feinberg devoted considerable space in Pianism as Art to Scriabin and the special pedal techniques he used to further his music’s sense of quixotic fantasy. One should not be percussive when playing Scri- abin. During his years teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, from 1898 to 1903, he admonished his students to play as if in a dream; even their fortissimos had to sound soft. His “dream tones” are thus hazed and suggestive, as one would experience the murmur of distant conversation. This concept is beautifully illustrated in one of the composer’s surviving piano rolls, In the famous Etude, Op. 8, No. 12, modern listeners are used to Horowitz's demonic, hard-edged interpretation, born of his sheer virtuosity. Scriabin’s way with the piece was much less public. Soft-grained and subtle, his conception of the work provides invaluable insight into authentic Scriabin style (despite the unrelia- bility of the reproducing piano rolls on which he recorded). According to Safonov, “Scriabin possessed in the highest degree what I always impressed on my students: the less like itself a piano is under the fingers of the player, the better it is.”"" Scriabin placed great emphasis on the piano’s more diaphanous qualities, pro- ducing transparent, ethereal, and sensuous sonorities. Alexander Pasternak, upon hearing the composer firsthand in the drawing room of his family’s dacha, described Scriabin’s style: As soon as | heard the first sounds on the piano, even if I was sitting with my eyes shut not looking at Scriabin’s hands and fingers, | immediately had the impression that his fingers were producing the sound without touching the keys, that he was (as it were) snatching them away from the keyboard and letting them flutter lightly over it. This created an extraordinary illusion that his fingers in some strange way were drawing the sound owf of the instrument. . .. His enemies used to say that it was not real piano playing, but a twittering of birds or a mewing of kittens, meaning both his interpretation and the actual sound of the instrument.” “With Scriabin, harmony and timbral coloring are inseparable,” wrote Feinberg. “In the sonority of his last-period compositions, the smallest upsetting of balance and accurate distribution of force . .. may be perceived as falsity or excessive nerv- ousness.”* Scriabin had little tolerance for hammer-virtuosos, as Rachmaninov’s biographer Victor Seroff explained: Scriabin had an almost magical touch, especially bewitching when he played softly, superbly using his pedal for an ephemeral effect. He hated pianists whoFEINBERG AND SCRIABIN TE played “as though they were washing laundry or smelling the instrument,” and especially when they played his compositions with the same approach and touch as if his piano pieces were Rachmaninov’s or Tchaikovsky’s.## Scriabin the performer was much like Chopin. Both musicians preferred to play in intimate surroundings. They were slight of build and not muscular, and they rarely played loudly, The compensations were dramatic, however, and Scriabin was a pianist to be taken seriously. A review in the Russian Musical Gazette noted Scria- bin’s great success: The impression that lingers is one of ravishment . . . the enchantment of his performance. He is a wizard with the pedal, though his ethereal sounds cannot quite fill the hall. He captivates his audience, too, by giving the impression of improvising. He breaks the rhythmic flow and something new comes out each time. This suffuses the performance with freshness. Never has he played his Fourth Sonata with more mastery or sincerity. ... What power he put in the theme in the second movement! Yet the actual sound was not big. The secret is in the energetic rhythm. This aspect of the pianistic art is generally stressed in Russia at an early stage of training. Feinberg elaborated: “The most significant difference between post- Beethoven pianism that led—through Chopin and Liszt—to Scriabin’s piano style, is in the absolutely new principles of rhythmic interpretation.” In tandem with sound and rhythm, a critical attribute of Scriabin’s art is the individuality of the left hand, In one of his most serious setbacks, the strain of repetitive practice had caught up with him as he tried to exceed his natural limits: he had injured his right hand trying to imitate the virtuoso Josef Lhévinne, his classmate at the conservatory. His jealousy of Lhévinne cooled their friendship, and Scriabin could barely control his devastation over what he thought would be permanent damage. In one of the pri- vate notebooks he kept at the time, he touched on themes that were to have a pro- found impact upon his art: At twenty, an ominous hand ailment, a most decisive event in my life. Fate puts an obstacle, incurable according to the doctors, to the attainment of an ardently desired goal—brilliance, fame. The first serious failure in life. The first earnest attempt at philosophy; the beginning of self-analysis. Reluctance to admit that my ailment is incurable, and yet an obsession with somber moods. First reflections on the value of life, religion, God. Continued strong faith ... Ardent, long prayers, constant church attendance... Reproaches addressed to fate and to God. Composition of the First Piano Sonata with a funeral march.” Scriabin therefore concentrated on perfecting his left hand to extraordinary re- finement and independence. His early Prelude and Nocturne, Op. 9—the former112 CHAPTER 3 defiant, the latter sensuous—appeared after Alkan’s Etude, Op. 76, and foreshad- owed Godowsky’s developments in music for the left hand alone. Traces of the mature Scriabin may be observed in these two pieces through their construction, pedal technique, deceptive transparency, and expressiveness. ‘These factors coalesced in his Second Sonata. It was conceived in 1892, a decade before Debussy’s La mer appeared. Both pieces evoke a very personal reaction to the beauty and expanse of the sea. Scriabin’s work and Feinberg’s own Second Sonata express intense lyricism, as if under the sway of the first blush of nature. Scriabin’s performing directions for his Fourth Sonata’s concluding Presto sum up a crucial principle of his later works: “I want it even faster, as fast as possible, on the verge of the possible. ... It must bea flight at the speed of light, right towards the sun, into the sun!”** Feinberg correlated the overwhelming effect of the Fourth Sonata’s conclusion with the slower material that precedes it: An impetuous musical torrent may be born within the bounds of a slow tempo. With Scriabin’s prestissimo, his fastest textures are built of the elements ripened in the intense expressiveness of slower constructions. The rapidity of Scriabin’s tempos grows out of the fabric of an emotional andante. ... Aslow melody with Scriabin is developed smoothly, with neither sharp accents nor a distinct reliance on rhythmic meter. Gradually accelerating its movement can achieve the feeling of alienation from material foundations, precisely that “soaring” which is so necessary for the realization of Scriabin’s intentions. The prestissimo volando of the fourth sonata is not so much a quick tempo as an andante raised to a new degree.® A year before he died, Scriabin publicly declared Feinberg’s interpretation of the Fourth Sonata unsurpassed and unimagined even by himself. Eighteen years older than Feinberg, Scriabin became highly deferential to his young colleague. Their relationship could not be called father and son, nor mentor and protégé; rather, they shared a common heritage and devotion to the best their country had to offer. Composed immediately after The Poem of Ecstasy, Scriabin’s Fifth Sonata is fun- damentally tonal, chromatic, and sensual. Its composer said that this music existed outside him in images he could not express verbally: “I am but the translator.” One of Scriabin’s most physical works, it also abundantly displays the languid atmosphere of reverie that is unmistakably his. A barely controlled onrush of sound opens and concludes the work, scaling rapidly up the keyboard with increasing intensity, only to vanish suddenly. At the end, silence resonates, as the work departs with the glorious ambiguity that would only deepen in his later works. Scriabin subtitled his favorite sonata, the Seventh, “White Mass.” Bowers noted that the composer called it “‘purest mysticism,’ and felt that in it he had at last achieved ‘the highest complexity within the highest simplicity,’ for finally his system was clear and concentrated, while the message it conveyed was ultimate and abso-FEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 113 lute.” In the Eighth Sonata, which followed a year later, traditional tonality is dis- solved. Ofit, Scriabin wrote, “There must not be any difference at all between har- mony and melody. . . . In form and essence, the inner and outer must be the same and one.”>! Especially in his later works, Scriabin blurred the lines of. melody and accompaniment in a constantly shifting play of sound. Scriabin’s music frequently operates at a high emotional or physical pitch: wit- ness the Ninth Sonata, which he often performed. Given the title “Black Mass” by his close friend Alexei Podgaetsky, it is demonic and satanic; Scriabin said he was “practicing sorcery” while playing it.>* Bowers described this sonata’s atmosphere as “perverse. The rite is a spitting at all that is holy or sacred. If the seventh exorcizes demons, the ninth resummons them. Corruption, perversity, diabolism recurs.”* ‘The Satanic Poem (Op. 36) explores similar themes; Bowers called that work “Faust in miniature.” Scriabin referred to his harmonies as “sensations,” a provocative conceptactively discussed among his followers. His use of trills and birdsong was widely adopted by composers after him, including Messiaen, Scriabin’s later music, such as the Op. 74 Preludes, inhabits a spare milicu that presages that of the twenty-first century’s religious mystics—Arvo Part, Henryk Gorecki, and John Tavener. During his life- time Scriabin’s creations were viewed as veering toward physical exhaustion and world-weariness, perhaps even death. But he never thought that he would die so young; he was fascinated, indeed stimulated, by what would exist for him once freed from the earth, He was constantly trying to stretch himself, never satisfied with what he had just accomplished, always looking ahead to the next work. Scriabin said many times about his creative development that he lived only by the hope of the future. Having explored the physically challenging and erotic sides of his muse, Scri- abin looked increasingly beyond his earthly being into the unknown world beyond life. The year before he died, Scriabin spoke passionately of “the ultimate divest- ment of fleshly garments, of dematerialization [a theosophical expression for the transformation of all earthly senses}, of a return to a state of pure spirituality.”55 Yet he remained bound to the wonders of nature. Vers la flamme (Toward the Flame) is an extraordinary musical depiction of the elements, akin to Debussy’s aquatic L’isle joyeuse. The two works move relentlessly toward climactic ecstasy through fire and water, respectively. Of the Tenth Sonata, completed less than two years before his death, Scriabin wrote, “It isa forest! . .. the sounds and moods of the forest. This sonata will be absolutely different. . . . It will be joyously radiant and earthy.” Despite these images, the burning nature of his later music is never far away. Scriabin said that during this sonata “the sun comes down and blisters the earth.”*” This image was created partly through trills, which for Scriabin represented “palpitation . . . trembling . . . the vibration in the atmosphere.”** Little more than a year before Scriabin’s death, an inspired Sorabji wrote of the “radiant ecstatic quality that no other [composer] past or present has.”>? Over forty years later, heFEINBERG AND SCRIABIN 1s continued to be fascinated with Scriabin, writing, “The sheer sound of the later Scri- abin is invariably exquisite.” By this time Sorabji’s music itself had absorbed a number of Scriabin-inspired textures and trills. Scriabin’s ultimate aesthetic, though, was to transcend imagery. In an article Published in April 1915, the month he died, he is quoted as saying, “Through music and color, with the aid of perfume, the human mind or soul can be lifted outside or above merely physical sensations into the region of purely abstract ecstasy and Purely intellectual speculation.”*" His words highlight the visceral, narcotic quality found throughout his later music. Scriabin intended to follow these precepts with an unfinished mystical monument to art, Mysterium, designed to be his ultimate con- tribution to the world. To further these aims, Scriabin befriended luminaries from Moscow’s theatrical life, including Konstantin Stanislavsky and Isadora Duncan, and learned from them much about the possibilities of performance art. Scriabin conceived a weeklong celebration of music, dance, colored lights, and incense, all with philosophical ambitions—a huge event boasting only participants, with no audience. Fifty years later, the words “Woodstock” and “free love” would evoke similar aspirations. Contrasts Feinberg, in contrast to Scriabin, was very much a man of this world, with all the qualities to inspire tremendous loyalty among fellow professors, students, com- Posers, and audiences, Busoni’s description of Mozart could well be applied to Fein- berg: “He is not demoniacal and not supernatural, his realism is of this earth.”® Not for Feinberg were Scriabin’s flights of fantasy and flesh, Cultured, widely read, outwardly serene, and well grounded, Feinberg showed genuine interest in all peo- plearound him. His modesty allowed openness to new thoughts and ideas, reflected ina huge repertoire of historic and contemporary works. The self-centered Scriabin rarely played music other than his own, thought that his was the only possible way, and showed scant interest in those around him. He possessed the otherworldly atti- tude ofa dreamer, albeit with the tools and means ofa master craftsman. Feinberg’s charisma represented the attainment of power to Scriabin’s hunger for it, urgency to Scriabin’s mania. They did share a central compositional tenet in their desire to go well beyond previously set limits, to express, in Alexandrov’s words, “that which has not yet found its voice but is longing to do so.”® Music by the great humanist and the great mystic remains starkly relevant to our present society, perpetually seeking balance through life’s universal, unanswerable questions,